Sep 9 2006
REVIEW: Venice by Lynne Martin (aka Lynne Connolly)
Dear Mrs. Connolly,
Forget anything I’ve ever said about British authors not writing enough sex scenes. In VENICE, you’ve finally gotten your two protagonists married and they’re off for their bride trip to beautiful, golden Italy. Only they have a slight problem. Two actually. Someone is trying to kill them and impostors have stolen their identities.
From the back blurb:
The third book in the Richard and Rose series shows Venice in all its glittering magnificence as well as its dark side.
When their wedding day nearly turns to tragedy by an assassin’s bullet, Richard takes no more chances with his beloved Rose. They will travel incognito to Venice.
Venice is as full of knaves as London. Two of the villains mark Richard and Rose as their particular quarry. Do they hold the key to the assassination attempt or are they playing a deadly game of their own?
Once again we can see that you’ve obviously done your research into everyday life of the Georgian period and it’s displayed so nicely one is never even aware of it. When they discover the impostors, Richard and Rose decide to have some fun stringing them along and take the personas of a middle class wine merchant and his wife. Thus we can see the subtle nuances and differences in the two social stations in life. I love how you show this in the aspect of clothes. Dresses Rose would once have considered perfectly acceptable she now knows are far below the quality of those Richard provides for her.
In addition, your love for the city of Venice shines through on each page. In the afterward, 
you mention it as being one of your favorite places and its golden beauty wraps around one while reading.
And I did mention this is a bridal trip? Richard and Rose get to explore the full depths of their physical love for each other and since they’re staying in a small (by aristocratic standards) apartment, little of this is hidden from anyone. Just one more thing for Rose to accustom herself to in her new life as a beloved wife of a powerful and wealthy English peer.
There are some nice secondary characters, many of whom we’ve seen in previous books and as I’ve mentioned in other reviews, the characters don’t act like modern people in side hoops, knee britches and wigs. If I wondered a bit about the villains of the book and their powerful desire for revenge, it was made up for by the fascinating view of a distant world and two people deeply in love. B
~Jayne
Edited to add: the first four books in the series plus two new ones are supposed to be released by Mundania Press. The releases were to have started already but have been held up due to health problems of the editor there.
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Sep 09, 2006 @ 12:25:32
Jayne — where can I find this series of books? I’m still not used to tracking down ebooks, and I looked at ereader and fictionwise, but couldn’t find them.
Sep 09, 2006 @ 12:58:03
Robin, unfortunately these books aren’t for sale right now. Maybe Lynne Connolly/Martin would come and explain the long and tortuous story about how these books are to come out soon. (I am not sure when “soon” is). These are the first epublished books I ever read and they were a wonderful series.
1 book I think you can buy now of hers is “Vanessa” and that one, while not as good as the Rose and Richard series, gives you a taste of her writing.
Sep 09, 2006 @ 15:43:07
Lynne has promised that these three are being re-released fairly soon. Her website says early 2006, but I wonder if she doesn’t mean 2007 because that’s what I’ve been expecting. The 4th one, Harley Street, had a cliffhanger ending, so many of us are anxious for #5.
I highly recommend Vanessa. It’s a Regency, but one of only 2 I’ve ever read that takes place in Vienna during the Congress there prior to Waterloo. Lynne does not write wallpaper history.
She has a yahoo group and over the last year has been treating us to a full-length book for free. I have all 24 chapters published so far (gee, another one is due this weekend!).
Phyl
Sep 09, 2006 @ 18:29:23
Robin, I’m sorry, I should have listed the links to Mundania Press when the review was first posted. I’ve added links to Lynne’s website and Mundania now. If you go to her website and click on “Writing Under Lynne Martin” then “Coming Soon,” you can read little blurbs for all six books.
When I was about to post the review of “Yorkshire” (the first book in the series), I contacted Lynne about new cover art. She gave me the schedule for release then but so far, it hasn’t been followed. She said that the new editor had just had major surgery and was recuperating, hence the delay in the releases.
Sep 10, 2006 @ 10:56:09
Thanks for the updating information everyone. All I can say is that this series sounds like something I would really enjoy, and the delaay is quite frustrating. Do ebook publishers have more latitude than trad publishers in pushing back release dates? I love that there’s competition, mind you, but it feels kind of motley sometimes to a relatively new ebook reader trying to hunt down these ebooks from different publisher sites. It’s still very confusing to me.
I will definitely try Vanessa, but would love to know if there is any realistic date set for release of this series.
Sep 10, 2006 @ 18:40:44
I’m so sorry the series isn’t available yet. I’ve seen some lovely cover art, that just needs a bit of tweaking, but that was a while back.
Mundania brings the books out in print and ebook, which was why I submitted the series to them for re-release. That, and they have a solid reputation as publishers, and I didn’t want the books to be pulled again.
But they have slowed down a bit. I was given June as a release date, but that’s been put back, and I haven’t anything solid. I would really like to see the releases! I have asked again, if they can come up with some dates for me.
I’ve sold a Regency to a new publisher, Uncial Press, which is ebook only. I did it because the editor of “Vanessa,” Jude Glad, has started the publisher with her daughter, and I owe Jude a lot. Her edit of “Vanessa” was a masterclass. The new book, “Laura,” is about a Regency war widow, a few years after her loss, who finds adventure and someone to love in the most unexpected place. It’s scheduled for June next year. The beta readers might recognise it by its old title, “Second Time Around.”
On the Georgian front, I’ve sold a trilogy to my “home” publisher, Triskelion, which has a new historical line called Sonnet. The Secrets trilogy is about three male friends finding love, and each book features an aspect of mid Georgian society and the amazing developments of that period. Book one has a background of agrarian development, book two is optics (a short sighted heroine and an astronomer hero) and book three is manufacturing. The last book means a lot to me because I set the small button factory where a lot of the action takes place on the site of my childhood home. And in case you’re wondering, they’re all romances!
What I didn’t expect was for the contemporaries to take off quite as well as they have done. When I agreed to write a few for Triskelion, I didn’t know quite how big Trisk was going to get, and is getting, or what a ride the books would take me on. Triskelion books are now in most bookstores. the company gained RWA recognition earlier this year, and sales are going up. I’ve had a few Sally Field moments this year! (“They like me, they really like me!”)
So I have to concentrate on the paranormals for now, but historical has always been a deep love and I won’t abandon them.
I can only say thank you for remembering Richard and Rose, and I hope to see them back soon. The first book is dedicated to my father, because I wrote it during his long illness. He didn’t live to see it published, but he always said I could do it, so I did it for him.
Sep 11, 2006 @ 11:22:17
I’ve read it and it’s great.
All the best guys.
ps: the sex scenes are indeed enough :)
Alex